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For example, a 10 foot Pipe that is 20 feet long will require an 18-20 feet deep hole and provides a gross interior area of 1,570 cubic feet. Keep in mind that the interior surface is curved ( similar to being in a submarine ), and therefore requires a floor to be installed, which reduces headroom. Simply put, a pipe doesn’t lend itself to being space efficient and comfortable.
Most likely, 2018 will pass without any of these things happening. Then again, most likely it’ll pass without you having a traffic accident – but you still pay for car insurance. If I’m ready to cope with any of the things I fear most in the coming year I’ll also be able to handle anything else that goes wrong, and that’s what prepping is all about.
afraid i haven’t. my experience has been that the average person will resort to lying, stealing and often violence at the first sign of trouble. there are exceptions, of course, but i haven’t found any reliable way to identify them before the shtf. even longtime friends can turn on a dime; and relatives…well, just consider what happens when some well-heeled person in the family dies! wish i could be more encouraging, but i just don’t see it that way.
I’ve written in a previous article about beans as survival food. No matter how you look at it, the bottom line is that beans are a superfood. They are high in protein and fiber and other nutrients that can help keep you healthy during an extended crisis. They are excellent foods to feed more than one person since one cup of dry beans makes 2-3 cups of cooked beans (depending on the variety). Once you get to the store, make sure you pick three large bags of beans. To diversify your meals feel free to choose your favorite. One thing to mention is that beans are also proper survival seeds. In case you need to start a garden, you already have some of the seeds waiting for you.
This whole discussion was started by JJ who attempted to blame the evils of today on WHITE men who had not matured. Of course, it is immature white men who have abandoned their families. It is immature white men who have dropped out of school and then complain because they can’t get jobs. It is white men who populate the jails and penitentiaries of the country with more of their population than any other race.
The increased inflation rate in the 1960s, the US monetary devaluation, the continued concern over a possible nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and perceived increasing vulnerability of urban centers to supply shortages and other systems failures caused a number of primarily conservative and libertarian thinkers to promote individual preparations. Harry Browne began offering seminars on how to survive a monetary collapse in 1967, with Don Stephens (an architect) providing input on how to build and equip a remote survival retreat. He gave a copy of his original Retreater's Bibliography to each seminar participant.[citation needed]
You should have two weeks’ worth of non-perishable, easy-to-prepare survival food in your home — no good prep is complete without it. If you want to skip the DIY labor and just buy something off the shelf, we spent 180+ hours reviewing over $2,000 worth of the most popular products. After testing 11 options from 7 companies, the best choice for most people is the new Emergency Essentials Premier bucket. Three of which cover two people for more than two weeks for $379.

I don’t care if freezing doesn’t kill the bugs. The flour will be used to cook something. It will go into a baked item or be used to coat something for frying. Now I am not saying we shouldn’t take precautions against infestation. What I am saying is there has to be a balance. At what cost (in money, time and effort) is it worth it to make something absolutely safe? Personally, I don’t want to lose focus.

How would you like to call a missile base home? America built 107 missile bases around the country during the arms race in the 1960s, including the Atlas F Missile Silo located about 130 miles north of Albany. It was decommissioned after only four years and has sat dormant and neglected for decades, eventually selling for $160,000 in 1997 and again for $575,000 in 2015. Bear in mind that the “super hardened” facility, built for the equivalent of $100 million in today’s dollars, was designed to withstand almost any bomb imaginable.
My number one tip, though, is to go through your cupboards and closets and remove those items that are duplicates, that you rarely use, or that you do not use at all. For example, in your kitchen, how may different pots and pans do you need? My guess is that you use the same two or three over and over again. Stow the extras in the basement, attic, or garage, or give them away to charity. Trust me, they will not be missed. The same thing applies to seldom used clothing, shoes and sports equipment.
Earlier this year the hands of the Doomsday Clock moved to two minutes to midnight, as atomic scientists announced that the world is closer to annihilation than it has been in decades. Is it any wonder then that the worldwide phenomenon of prepping, in all its camouflaged, gun-toting, canned-food-hoarding glory, is spreading as global anxiety about everything from thermonuclear war to climate change takes hold.
afraid i haven’t. my experience has been that the average person will resort to lying, stealing and often violence at the first sign of trouble. there are exceptions, of course, but i haven’t found any reliable way to identify them before the shtf. even longtime friends can turn on a dime; and relatives…well, just consider what happens when some well-heeled person in the family dies! wish i could be more encouraging, but i just don’t see it that way.
Has anyone considered that with out fuel or just cooking over a fire, that cooking them things like dried beans (they take a couple of hours to cook on a stove), or rice ( 20 minutes). Unless you do a lot of cooking with un even fire, you will either burn the food or under cook it. Wouldn’t processed foods or dehydrated foods be better. Less cooking . When listing what to stock up on, don’t list dried beans and rice as a staple or you will have a lot of people having to eat raw rice and beans. Thanks for listening. Ioma
Gaye, I have worked for Green Giant for many years. It is their harvest season now. They have giant warehouses to in which to store their can goods for the next year. They have to get rid of last years cans, to make room for this year’s cans. Have you noticed that in the fall of the year, can fruits and vegetables go on sale. I’m not telling you to not buy them, but keep in mind that most of them are last years crops, and as such, are one year old when you buy them.

Just like rice, pasta is a great way to get carbohydrates. I love pasta and I’ve learned to improvise all sorts of meals using it. This is one of the cheapest survival foods you can find and there are many possibilities to stretch a meal using pasta. You can make pasta with tuna, with canned vegetables and I’ve even had pasta fried in lard with pieces of beef jerky seasoned with cayenne pepper. It is really worth stocking up on pasta. Make sure you buy some when you get at the grocery store.

You make good sense about starting with a years supply of preps. Without putting any emphasis on myself it is easy for me to forget that I was born in 1953. What we call prepping is what my grandparents called normal living. They never stored water, of course we had plenty of it back then, but food, preserved, canned, dehydrated, powdered, and in just about every other form was everywhere in their lives. And they were not big farmers, just small timers with no bills, no agenda, no nothing except the ability to have plenty in the toughest of times. Those people taught me a lot and I thank Christ for them every day. Well, that’s enough about me. Best wishes to you and keep up the good work.
I have been prepping and studying almost daily, prepping topics for three years and find this article to be the most comprehensive, reasonable and thorough list with detailed explanations I’ve ever found. My personal prepping checklist and bug out bag inventory stocks are typed up with quantities of each items and expiration dates of all medications and food supplies. The lists are specific to each bug out bag or duffel bag locations for easy of finding, when I need them quickly. Having spent thousands of dollars in my bug out bags and packs! I appreciate your effort and thought in designing this very creative list for prepper’s needing guidance. Remember folks … It’s always up to you!!! Don’t be standing there with a dumb look on your face when your family and friend look to you for help.

More than 500 bunkers for lease are owned by a ranching company that grazes cattle on the land around them in Edgemont, S.D. Robert Vicino's company, The Vivos Group, is trying to lease 575 former military munitions bunkers in southwest South Dakota to doomsday preppers, for use in case of an asteroid strike, a nuclear war or any other catastrophic event. Ryan Hermens, Rapid City Journal

In the end, it’s a good thing to have multiple tools or ways to accomplish something. Most preppers take a “two is one, one is none” approach with backups and redundancies. Following this guide is an efficient way to have those backups. Rather than having three med kits in your basement collecting dust, each one is serving a purpose at all times by being ready in your home, bug out bag, and get home bag.
Ed, I was thinking about the box culverts as I reasd the article. As a Civil Engineer, I have used them in numerous applications as a cost effetive alternative to poured in place concrete. I would expect a bunker design would be an easy adaptation of the typical box culvert instalation. The ends can be precast solid or with openings for addition of steel or aluminum doors. Openings can also be cast in the sides or tops for hatch or vent installation with some size limitations. 12′ x 12′ x 4′ running length is as big as you can truck… Read more »
With that goal in mind, let me say this: this is not a list of items intended for deep storage. Nor is it a list of items packaged so that they have a 25 year shelf life. (And in reality, do you really need your stored food to last that long?) I am also not going to list items that might be foreign to your palate, difficult to find, or too costly to absorb into your weekly shopping budget.
I am officially embarrassed to be an American. My niece just told me she wants to be a prepper because she’s afraid for the future, and wanted some help getting started. I asked her what she wanted to prepare for, and you know what she said? “I’m afraid the president is going to get us killed with the things he says and does.”. I may not be a big fan of him, but that just embarrasses the hell out of me.
7. A selection of non-GMO, heirloom seeds suitable for your climate zone. Tough times may include expensive produce that’s difficult to come by. You can grow your own, but there’s a very high learning curve involved. Stock up on seeds for foods you know your family will eat. Heirloom seeds are preferred since they haven’t been genetically modified. Learn how to save seeds from one season to the next, but whatever you purchase,
What is your physical ability? Are you and your spouse able to lift a 50 gallon garbage can full, in case you have to move it? Not everybody can do it alone easily. I met a person who was physicaly strong, but she had days her hands couldn’t open anything because of a chronic sickness. Another one, very strong also, but his back was fragile sometimes.
Eight years ago the leaders of my church suggested I keep a store cupboard. Hurricanes and earthquakes were becoming more prevalent, and flooding was affecting whole villages within hours. The store cupboard was suggested as something to fall back on – a few months’ food in case of disaster. I live in a small village in Derbyshire. It’s rural. And with five kids I have to be prepared for everything. I thought it was a good idea.
Not to mention the “year without a summer” that happened after the eruption of Mt. Tambora in the Dutch East Indies in 1815. The resulting ash and smoke plume blocked the sun enough to lower the average temperatures only by a few degrees. It was enough to trigger famines in North America and Europe for several years until temperatures gradually normalized. If the Yellowstone caldera erupts the smoke and ash would block the sun much as would a nuclear winter and would trigger even worse famines and suffering from people trying to cope with minimum if any infrastructure for heat, water, medical, etc. just for the simple reason that we’ve got way more people now and more of us live in urban areas.

But if you stay, take note of the time. When the outage strikes, the clock is ticking on the food in your refrigerator and freezer. The USDA says food in a fridge will stay safely cold for four hours if the door isn't opened and a full freezer will maintain temperature for about 48 hours (if it's half full, that's 24 hours) as long as you keep the door closed. And don't rely on just looking — and certainly not on tasting — to see if the food's safe, they say. Instead, keep appliance thermometers in the fridge and freezer. You want to see 40 F or below in the fridge and 0°F or lower in the freezer. When in doubt, take individual foods' temperature with a food thermometer.

Personal hygiene is even more important in emergency situations than during everyday life. We have so many conveniences at our disposal in our society. Yet many people don’t realize the challenges when those conveniences are no longer available. Personal hygiene is really about keeping clean and avoiding unsanitary conditions that can lead to illness.
Disturbing news from the Southern Carribean. The World Bank just “ruled” against Venezuela in favor of oil giant ConocoPhillips, saying they could “seize” their government owned oil assets. All this while Russian nuclear bombers and naval vessels have been sighted in the area. Venezuela, already on the verge of collapse, may be the next flash point in the world. Lawsuit Article Link
The problem is, to most people in Hawaii, this was another example of an inept government sending out false alarms. We get them about Tsunami’s a couple times a year… When the alert went off on my phone, it seemed disconcerting. Clearly, I wanted more information, so I turned on the local news TV channel. There was a football game on. I tried other channels. Regular programing. I tried CNN. They were complaining about the President.

The MPS totes let in a little water when we submerged them. And the tote lid bent a little under the weight testing, but did not collapse or hurt the food. As expected, the cardboard boxes containing Mountain House foods got soggy immediately. But the packets of food themselves are waterproof. The boxes stacked well but didn’t offer nearly the same protection as the buckets.

In 2014 there was a major outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa. This was far larger than all earlier outbreaks combined, because people are getting more mobile and the disease reached larger towns and cities. Horrifyingly, it also managed to reach out across the Atlantic and infect four people in the USA. We were lucky; all the cases were caught before they could spread further. We might not be lucky next time – and the virus is still out there in Africa. All it takes is one sick person to get on a plane and we could be facing a major epidemic.
I am a fan of the dollar store. Having been hit by a car while walking across a street by a nut on a cell phone. I have continuous pain in my back and gets worse on wet days. Enough of my aches. I use the stick on pain patch that works and gives relief. It is the container however that I want to talk about. it is made of aluminized mylar and cutting off the top it has a resealing edge. I have tried the seal with a cracker under water for a week and it kept it dry as a bone. It is also light tight and recovered film my camera ate and put it inside to have a man with darkroom develop them. the package has a smell of menthol but if left open dissipates in a few days. This package can provide waterproof flat storage for anything so I thought all might like to try it. The patches are also good for sprain’s as well. If you don’t think it isn’t worth it you are out a dollar. go to dollar tree where all is a dollar. No advertisment intended.

I know that in my own case and also with the majority of the readers on Backdoor Survival, hunkering down and bugging in will always be preferred to taking off into the unknown with our stuff. For many, the choice to bug in has to do with family, health concerns or financial considerations. That, plus the availability of stored supplies makes bugging in – or staying at home – the choice when a disaster strikes.

The hardest thing to do is to actually get started. An easy way to begin is to go to home depot or Lowe’s and get a supply of 5 gallon plastic containers and a magic marker. Then, when you can go to the store and buy the rice, beans salt and other staples, you have a place to store them that is water, bug and rodent proof. Also look for some oxygen eliminated packets to put in the bottom of these containers. Also good for storing ammo. Use magic marker to label all containers.

Survivalists' concerns and preparations have changed over the years. During the 1970s, fears were economic collapse, hyperinflation, and famine. Preparations included food storage and survival retreats in the country which could be farmed. Some survivalists stockpiled precious metals and barterable goods (such as common-caliber ammunition) because they assumed that paper currency would become worthless. During the early 1980s, nuclear war became a common fear, and some survivalists constructed fallout shelters.
Balance is also something to remember when you are prepping your food storage. There is a better chance of survival when you pack a month or two of a wide variety of stuff than if you have a year’s supply of 2 or 3 items. If an emergency happens, then you would have a better chance of surviving if you count on your 2 month supply of a wider range of items than you would on just wheat flour and rice, for example.
It was a bit paralyzing, knowing I couldn’t do much in this situation to keep my kids safe. I’m grateful it was a false alarm.At home we have supplies and plenty of food, but here on vacation, not so much. We did just go to the grocery store last night, so we have several days worth of food, but only an electric stove to cook with if we couldn’t go outside. Otherwise, no preps here, and very little with us.”
The Vivos Europa One shelter, located in Rothenstein, Germany boasts lavish amenities such as grand swimming pools, gyms, theaters, restaurants, customized apartment units, outdoor service, and even a helicopter service. It also features its own roadways, railways, tunnel chambers, top-notch security system, blast-proof doors, self-contained water system, and power generators.
I’m cutting trees around 18″ plus at the base. 32 growth rings. I helped ‘re purpose an old house that was in the woods. One of the original settler log homes. Land was deeded by Andrew Jackson, south Arkansas. I have a log sill that is 9″ in diameter, 89 growth rings, maybe more. Both trees here are pine, 1/4 mile apart. Something must have been different back then.
Basically I would think in terms of mixed contents for five gallon buckets. I always use Food Grade buckets only combined with good Mylar bags and oxygen absorbing packs. By mixed contents I mean bags of rice (white) beans various types along with pasta products etc. this way you do not expose five gallons of rice or beans all at once. This extends the overall life of your food supplies.
I personally like 5 gallon buckets with the gamma lids, so that I can access and rotate my food. I built shelves for food storage but I do have some of big Home Depot style orange shelves and they would work well. I also have some mix of number 10 cans but i like them less because they seem so bulky. For things that i rotate through slower input a Mylar bag in the bucket to keep thing fresh. I live in Utah and we have an industrial container store that sells buckets and lids for a great price, a lot less than the e-prep stores.
If you’re anything like me, you can easily get sucked into thinking about doing specific things that really won’t help you out all that much. These kinds of tasks could be redundant and repetitive, or even appealing and quite fun, but in actual reality, happen to be way too time consuming for the amount of pay off you’d get from doing them. Don’t let yourself get sucked back in to spending time on these kinds of task if you find they’re absorbing way too much of your time! Stick them on a not to do list to remind yourself to keep your time for things that have a higher pay off!

Water should be able to be stored indefinitely provided it is not contaminated in any way. The problem with storing water in a car is the heat or cold. In the summer time, your water could bake. In really hot environments, if your water is stored in plastic, chemicals in the plastic can leech into your water. There could be some debate about what is the greater harm, chemicals or death by dehydration, but it is something to consider. In the same way, water in the winter can freeze, but as long as it isn’t getting contaminated from any other… Read more »

Being from the south, we eat a lot of cornbread, so I would have to add cornmeal to this list. I think that cornbread would be an excellent option for a grid down situation. It’s very simple to make, cornmeal, and water, plus salt or any extra veggies you may have. I would also add dry pasta, and oil, for cooking and seasoning your cast iron. I may have missed this, but what about peroxide and alcohol? But you thought of a lot of things I never would have. Great list!
But this is a situation where we can achieve a lot through a simple ranking system. If we prepare for the far most likely disaster to strike us (for me it’s a tornado or extended power outage during winter time since I live in Alabama in the infamous “Dixie Alley”), we will find a pleasing truth…we will generally be prepared for many of the other types of disasters on our list by default, already.
I buy dry beans and can them myself. I know it sounds like a lot of work but its super easy and MUCH cheaper than store bought canned beans. I tend to have some empty canning jars so to keep as many full as possible I fill the empties with beans and have even canned water. An empty jar is just taking up space and provides NOTHING. The dry beans are good for long term and the self-canned are great for quick meals. The best of both worlds!
Once you get going, it will be easy to lose track of what you already have. The best way to overcome the state of confusion you will experience six months down the road is to start keeping track of your stored items now – from the beginning. Use a spiral notebook, a computer spreadsheet, or a clipboard and a pad of paper. Update your inventory with the item and date of purchase as it goes into storage and of course, mark it off as it rotates out.

We have several of the shelves from Costco/ Sam’s Club. They are great! Put the thin bar across the front of your shelves, not the back. We have some shelves from Thrive Life that rotate the food for you too. Love those! Bought on Black Friday sales. In the end, do what works for you and you budget and space. Ours has changed many times over the years.

This is only going to escalate in the days leading up to the election. The Establishment will not relinquish power for a prison cell and Trump's promise to appoint a special prosecutor Sunday at the debate was a veiled threat to "Our Dear Leader" that not even the office of the PRESIDENCY will be immune from the treason perpetuated on this Republic and her citizens.
I would add just a few things though, if you use creamer in your coffee add a few bottles of the powdered version, some dried fruits or a couple large bags of trail mix, pie fillings in a few fruit varieties (awesome in oats!), crackers are great for kids who won’t eat a tuna, spam or other canned meat sandwich but they may be willing to eat “lunchables” DIY of course!, and other all in one items like spaghetti O’s, canned stew, canned ravioli, and ramen. It may not be the healthiest solutions but if you need these items you will be exceptionally grateful you have them!
I would first off go through lists of super-foods, these foods are packed with nutrients. 1 Tablespoon of spiralina powder might have the nutrition equivalence of 2 cups of dried kale/spinach. You have to think about space and weight, as you may end up physically carrying these foods or have limited space. If you are fleeing town, and your car will holds “X” amount of space, you are certainly better off with a light load = use less gas = go farther away from disaster zone.

Editor’s Note: This article was generously contributed by Clarence Mason and in it he compares and contrasts two different survival bunker designs. Each have their advantages, but if you are considering building your own survival retreat option in the future, it makes sense to consider what is the best bunker design before you get too far down the planning road.

In all the years I’ve worked with preparedness one of the biggest problems I’ve seen is people storing food and not knowing what to do with it. It’s vital that you and your family become familiar with the things you are storing. You need to know how to prepare these foods. This is not something you want to learn under stress. Your family needs to be used to eating these foods. A stressful period is not a good time to totally change your diet. Get a food storage cookbook and learn to use these foods!
One room has a television and comfortable couch; several rooms have beds, including a kids' room with bunk beds; there is a full bathroom with a composting toilet (Vicino said some lessees might install septic systems); and other rooms are empty and open for conversion to whatever purpose a prepper might desire. Each room has carpet or vinyl flooring, and the concrete walls are painted with various colors.
Enjoy these healthy meals tonight or in 30 years with Numanna which has many different dietary restriction options like organic, gluten-free, non-GMO and more. Their best seller, the family mega pack will give you 840 servings of wholesome food and includes delicious recipes to make meals such as habanero chili, cheddar broccoli soup, pancakes and much, much more. This food can be used alone or along with other foods.
To your closing, I’d like to add something that Solomon said in the book of Proverbs: “The prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” So, we all should work, as Claude said, to keep making our personal situations stronger, and safer. God gave us incredible minds. Lets put them to good use. I like to do something every day; no matter how small it may be. Because, when you add up the little things, it turns into a great accomplishment.

I would never advise you start a survival food stockpile with something like this, but once you have a year or two of long-shelf life survival foods you can grab at a grocery store, and you’ve saved up enough in emergency funds of course, investing in something like this is, in my opinion, serious peace of mind. You, again, hopefully won’t have to use it, but if the time comes when you do, and you run out of your year or two supply at hand, this would come in really handy, especially since it will a quarter of a century before it even remotely starts going off.

Some of The Prepared’s experts use and love Soylent in everyday life. But there are plenty of people who dislike the taste, and one of our taste testers compared it to oat batter. The Natural flavor was the best received, followed by Cacao. Almost all of the testers didn’t like the Nectar flavor, saying the scent reminded them of perfume, and the flavor was strong and unpleasant.
Lastly, this list is primarily for Sheltering in Place and the requirements/resources the average person would be able to lay their hands on. This doesn’t take more extreme climates into consideration but should still provide a base regardless of where you live. For other lists you can check out our Resources page. For something more specific to the Bug Out Bag checklist, click here. Also this list is going to be missing the specifics of the amounts because each family or individual is different. So without further ado, here we go.

Clothing: There’s a reason why characters in military movies refer to socks so often — they’re critically important and often overlooked. We love Darn Tough socks because they’re wool and a lot more durable than other brands like Smartwool. Grab a boonie hat, too; they’re easy to throw in your bag and provide better protection than most other options.

Basically I would think in terms of mixed contents for five gallon buckets. I always use Food Grade buckets only combined with good Mylar bags and oxygen absorbing packs. By mixed contents I mean bags of rice (white) beans various types along with pasta products etc. this way you do not expose five gallons of rice or beans all at once. This extends the overall life of your food supplies.
The massive complex is spread over a sprawling and remote, off-grid area of approximately 18-square miles. It is strategically and centrally located in one of the safest areas of North America, at a high and dry altitude of 3,800 feet, relatively mild weather and well inland from all large bodies of water. It is over 100 miles from the nearest known military nuclear targets.
I keep several five gallon gas cans filled and ready for use. I don’t put any gas stabilizers in them, but I have stabilizers on hand. At the end of each quarter, I fill the cars with the gas from these cans, and go and get fresh. If the SHTF, and it looks like more time would be needed for the gas to keep, then and only then would I add the stabilizers to the gas.
The main home is a modest 1,860-square-foot brick structure, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. But the property, roughly a two-hour drive southwest of St. Louis, consists of a whopping 160 secluded woodsy acres full of wild turkeys, deer, foxes, and squirrels, plus two ponds and multiple storage sheds. Most intriguing of all is the 30-by-60-foot underground concrete bunker, which is reinforced with metal I-beams and comes equipped with electricity, water, and two airshafts. It’s described by the realtor as “practically impossible to find.”

Trump calls off meeting with North Korea’s leader. SAYS CANCELLATION OF KIM SUMMIT BASED ON KIM'S STATEMENTS, TREMENDOUS SETBACK' FOR NORTH KOREA AND THE WORLD, U.S. MILITARY IS `READY IF NECESSARY' REGARDING N.KOREA, HAVE SPOKEN WITH LEADERS IN JAPAN, S.KOREA ON N. KOREA, MAXIMUM PRESSURE CAMPAIGN ON NORTH KOREA WILL CONTINUE, IT'S POSSIBLE THAT A KIM SUMMIT COULD TAKE PLACE.

Good article! A few years ago, a medical condition for someone in my family required that I learn how to cook without high fat dairy, no corn products, no fish, and very low sodium. That means almost no packaged or processed foods, no fast food, almost no snack foods, no packaged flavor packets, no bottled flavorings…well you get the idea. Now I visit Costco a couple times a year for rice, beans, pasta, and meat. I grow almost all the vegetables we eat year round. Our grocery bills have gone way down. And now I actually know how to cook almost anything from scratch ingredients that I always have on hand in bulk. The foods many preppers stock up, are foods I never have in my house so I wouldn’t miss them if they suddenly became unavailable. In hind sight I’ve learned that “stuff” isn’t as important as skills. Trust me, cooking is a skill.

Midway through December, while temperatures in the UK plummeted, heaps of snow drove transport services into a frenzy and schools into closure. Water supplies froze. Medical assistance slowed, threatening genuine peril. People began to store fuel. Across the Midlands, families were left without power – no electricity, no heat – in some instances overnight. For those of us safely tucked away indoors, or unaffected by the weather, the news could be shocking. It also brought to mind an unnerving question: would you be ready if calamity struck?

You just never know what tomorrow will bring, but don’t wait until the time of a crisis to practice some of these skills. Learn to garden, because fresh food is healthier…make it a natural part of your life. Two tomatoe plants can produce a lot of tomatoes! Learn to fish..for fun with the family! Make a mental note of the people around you (or coworkers) who hunt. Learn to milk a cow(I am not kidding). Learn to sew or knit. Learn to cook over an open fire pit…make sure you build a fire pit! These are little things you can do now…without a computer. Hold practice runs with your community with disaster plans. A manual is not going to help you. What you know on a regular basis, will. What good is 20 lbs of rice going to do without knowing how to cook it without a stove or electricity???! It’s not! And for heavens sake, take a first aid class, and invest in a very good first aid kit. That is something you should do anyway.
Another possibility is a pre-fab concrete tornado shelter delivered to your site. They can double as storage sheds in good times, including as pool houses. Google ‘precast concrete storm shelter’ and variations on that. Anything which can stand up to a tornado would stand up to a fair blast. Not ground zero, but if you are worried about nuclear war, you probably don’t live at ground zero.

I think it depends on the situation. Dollar for dollar, I think you can get more for your money. A case of gov MRE’s is around 75-100 dollars. That’s 12 meals. If you have a family, and if this is your only means of ‘survival’ food, it is not going to last that long. For food on the run, the tactical run, it is an excellent option to have. For a 72 hour grid down fight or flight scenario, also a good option. While I wouldn’t completely write them off as useless or non essential in most survival situations, they… Read more »

Great article! I’ll be trying out several of these soon, since my family is in a tight spot financially and I’ve made the decision to stop buying dry goods or canned foods for the next several months in order to reduce spending. So we’re eating from long term food storage whenever I can incorporate ingredients into meals — one of our family favorites is canned meat fried up with rehydrated potato shreds & eggs & cheese to make sort of a corned beef or Spam hash! And we’ve already had good experiences with using cheese powder & dehydrated potato slices from the grocery’s “bulk food” section (very similar to the same items in our long term food storage) to make au gratin potatoes.
Finally something other than right wing sound bites. There are a lot of us out here that are concerned about survival and where our country is going that DO NOT buy into the baloney that is saying that liberals/progressives are the source of our problems. Yes, people on the left were beaten, imprisoned, and harassed for their beliefs. And yes, there are intolerant jackasses on the left, but the amount of violence, intimidation, denial of rights, and harassment coming from the right far outweighs any other source. I do not care about party labels-right wing democrats in the first 2/3 of the 20th century were responsible for much of the above.Look at the history that does not get taught-Rosewood, Tulsa, Southern Arkansas, and the thousands of lynchings that occurred. These were not done by progressives/liberals. Research history, read about our history, learn what really went on. Then proceed with making survival plans that are positive for our future.
I have been storing firewood. I also have two camp stoves, a single burner and a double burner. When things first fall out, my intention is to use the wood in one or more rocket stoves to heat water. Hot water will be a necessity for sanitation, utensil washing and general hygiene. The camp stoves will be used for cooking. That will continue until the fuel is exhausted. By that time I hope to have gained enough experience that I will be able to modulate the wood burning rockets stoves so that cooking on them will not be that much of a problem. I also plan to use wood burning to distill water as I anticipate that we will need to use ocean water for our water supply unless we just happen to have a wet year such as we are experiencing this year. If it were last year, we definitely would be distilling ocean water. Ocean water doesn’t have to be distilled for washing utensils, hands and clothing. It must be boiled however because there will be all sorts of stuff floating in the ocean that you wouldn’t want to touch let along wash with. Drinking water and water for face washing and teeth brushing will have to be distilled as one cannot drink salt water. I would recommend dehydrated foods for getting used to outdoor cooking, but for long term food you are going to need beans and rice. You can store a lot of calories in a small space for a long time with those two items. Beans and rice together release the protein in the beans to supplement the meat you eat. I always wondered why Mexican food featured beans and rice at the same meal. I thought it was overkill on carbs. Then I found out that the rice released the protein in the beans which otherwise was locked and unavailable.

I know how you feel when you get that urgent feeling that what you have is not enough. Shelly (the Survival Husband) and I were just talking about this last night. In my mind, I know that I have a lot but I keep purchasing more. Luckily, like you I am good at food rotation although I do have a lot of #10 tins and properly packaged buckets in deep storage as well. Those do not get rotated.

For experienced preppers like Daisy Luther, founder of the blog The Organic Prepper and the online survival goods store Preppers Market, ready-to-go freeze-dried meals are more of a last line of defense than anything else. Though she insists these products “have their place,” her version of long-term food storage sounds more like a way of life, a process of slowly building up a pantry that will enable her to feed her family as healthfully and economically as possible. Sometimes that means stocking up on the freeze-dried stuff, or buying whatever’s on sale at the supermarket; but it’s also about living in sync with the seasons, growing food in her own garden and using timetested home preservation methods—like canning and dehydrating—to ensure she always has food on hand.